IMAX Shares Rise As Wanda-AMC News Outweighs Mixed Q2 Earnings Report

The Q2 earnings report out this morning is actually pretty good, even though the earnings fell short of projections. Notably, the $219.7M gross box office for IMAX films in the quarter beat some analysts’ expectations. But the 9.6% jump in the share price this morning probably reflects the Street’s enthusiasm over last night’s announcement of a major expansion in IMAX’s building plans for AMC Theaters and its parent, China’s Wanda Group. As for IMAX’s Q2 financials: The company generated $11.8M in net income, +7.1% vs the quarter last year, on revenues of $82.3M, +17.2%. The revenue figure topped the consensus forecast for $76.4M. But adjusted earnings at 22 cents a share missed expectations for 26 cents. “Strategic investments — including our innovative laser projection system — along with some non-recurring items, contributed to higher operating expenses in the quarter,” CEO Richard Gelfond says. With help from releases including Disney/Marvel’s Iron Man 3, Paramount’s Star Trek: Into Darkness, and Warner Bros’ Man Of Steel, the gross box office number was +26.6%, while the average global box office per screen was +3.3% to $353,300. The company had 767 theaters in its network at the end of June, including 634 in commercial multiplexes, It installed 30 theater systems in the quarter, with 29 in new locations. It had a backlog of 284 theater systems at the end of June, up from 280 at the same time last year. With that backlog and the new AMC-Wanda deal, “the result is a strong pipeling for continued network expansion over the coming years,” Gelfond says.